This is my Father's house

This is my Father's house, and not a marketplace!

These cows and sheep stand far too deep; this is a rank disgrace!

This is my Father's house, not moneychangers' grounds!

These cannot stay; clear all away 'til God's true grace abounds.

 

This is our Father's house, a place of earnest prayer; 

And those who truly seek our God are surely welcome there.

This is our Father's house! No more with worldly things.

Let sacred space be filled with grace as all God's family sings.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, February 2024, after John 2:13-22.

MUSIC: Tune TERRA BEATA, Franklin L. Sheppard, 1915.

 

 

Somehow, Jesus's exclamations about the corrupted Temple as "my Father's house" evoked this tune, after some struggle, and the text took off as the second stanza became one for the church today to sing.